For all the bluster about "alien threats" in Earthgov propaganda, Earthgov's real plans seemed to center around consolidating what they had in a tighter and tighter fist (and of course using fear of such threats to help that along)--their program was internally rather than externally directed. They might have beat up on some minor alien powers here and there (we don't hear of anything for sure, at least IIRC, but we did see them intervene in an alien civil war in order to gain a strategic presence in that sector), but unlike the Centauri, they weren't going on risky offensives in every direction, nor did they want to, at that point anyway. If the Centauri Republic were Nazi Germany in terms of foreign policy, Earth was more Franco's Spain--or Stalin's USSR, between Molatov-Ribbentrop and Barbarossa, when they could consolidate internal control and control of their "sphere" (which did include smaller invasions of some minor powers, like the Baltics and Finland) while staying out of a larger war with major powers.

It's interesting that Earth and Centauri, the two emerging Shadow proxies in their latest war cycle, took these fairly different directions under their influence. I wonder what Clark answered when Morden first asked him "what do you want?" It may have been a very different, but equally acceptable, answer to the Shadows. Londo, in so many words, wanted to conquer alien worlds; Clark wanted to "conquer" his own people. I suppose these are two facets of "the dream" that the Shadows promote.

Going back to this I think its an interesting question who Morden actually asked and what they said. Clark isn't going to admit a desire to have a coup and curtail democracy to a stranger but it could be possible he makes some more militaristic xenophobic comment about "keeping earth safe" to Morden. Another possibility could be that Morden actually spoke to a member of the Psi Corps, not Bester(unless he's lying) but perhaps another faction as we see there in the know early in season 3. Again they might not have said "we want to rule the normals" but perhaps enough to pickup on the sense of superiority or fear of oppression.

That works two ways I would say, firstly it gives them access to telepaths but also it sows the seed for a potential telepath civil war on earth, nothing to say the shadows are only interested in inter species wars and Morden specifically makes the point of humans fighting each other driving advancement. Indeed you could argue that we see this directly as Edgars develops the telepath virus as a response to the growing threat.

Besides a lot of the typical praise this episode gets I personally wouldn't underrate the role Bruce McGill plays. I'm reminded a lot of the Quantum Leap finale where he plays the Bartender/God/Fate who lays out that Sam's leaping himself around to help others as I think his Major Ryan really helps to set up Sheridan's future path well.

His getting the role must go down as one of the luckiest coincidences on the show as well, firstly with Foxworth getting head hunted by DS9 and then Bruce hired instead of Everett McGill. Hague was a pretty good character and Foxworth played him with gravitas but McGill's Ryan had both that AND a much stronger human side to him that made passing the mantle on to Sheridan work so much better.